This incident happened to Mother Ursula Doumit, Mother superior of Saint Joseph Monastery, Jrabta, only three days following Sister Rafqa’s death on March 23, 1914.
Mother Ursula recounted: “I had a hazelnut-size pimple in my throat that somehow, bothered me while swallowing or talking, that lasted for seven years.
Then I referred my case to a physician, Antoun Khairallah of Jran, who suggested that I apply some solution of iodine to it. I promptly did, but, nonetheless, this was to no avail and it started to grow bigger until it become as large as a big almond. Then, it protruded outward, causing me great pain that prevented me from swallowing or drinking, even milk.
Because of that, I started suffering from severe headache that compelled me one evening to go to bed earlier than usual and to ask the nuns to leave me alone to be able to have some sleep. While I was fast asleep, I heard a knock at my door; I woke up and asked, “Who is that?”
An outside voice replied, “Take some soil of Rafqa’s Tomb and rub your throat with it, and then you will be healed.” Well, I thought it was one of the nuns who had knocked at my door and talked to me that way. Then I answered: “Why don’t you just leave me alone. Let me sleep?” but nobody replied. No sooner had I tried to resume my sleep, that I heard again, louder knocks at my door accompanied by a similar talk I had heard before. I, thus, replied that I would get the soil in the morning.
The next day, I asked each one of the nuns if they had knocked at my door and suggested that I get some soil…, but the answers were negative. However, I got some soil off Sister Rafqa’s Tomb, wondering what had happened to me, and dissolved it in some water and applied it to the pimple”.
After that, the nun, who waited on the sick, offered me a glass of milk that I drank without the least bit of bother at swallowing.
Then the nun inquired, “How is your throat?” This made me instantly remember the above named incident, and impulsively stretch my hand to feel the pimple, but it was all gone, and I have been completely healed ever since!!!”
This incident and the mysterious voice inspired the nuns of the monastery to distribute, as a benediction, a handful of soil taken off of Saint Rafqa’s Tomb. This soil became a source of grace and healing to all believers in God through the intercession of Saint Rafqa.
What Pope John Paul II said upon declaring Sister Rafqa Blessed serves the best to end this biography text:
“The Blessed Rafqa from Himlaya was ‘the salt of the earth and the light of the world.” And this is the mission of all the disciples of Jesus. After taking a lot of the rich church's heritage and the monastic life, the new blessed gave her homeland and church, the secret taste of the existence, entirely enriched by the Savior’s soul. She is like the light on the summit of the mountain.
We can describe her with this beautiful verse of the psalm 92:
“The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon”.
Homily of John Paul II
Beatification of Sister Rafqa
17 November 1985